


nightmare fever

by nanasuoka (djbunn3)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Nightmares, killua and alluka live with leorio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 16:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21077684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djbunn3/pseuds/nanasuoka
Summary: The room is dark, and quiet. His mind is fuzzy, muddled. Confused. He feels like he’s missing something important--the dream that had left him wide-eyed and gasping for breath eludes him, and the darkness feels constricting, like it’s taking his memories away and leaving burning ice in its place. He sucks in a deep breath through his mouth and draws his knees closer, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and finding them wet.Think. Think! What are you missing?***it's eleven fifty-seven at night and killua has a nightmare





	nightmare fever

It’s eleven fifty-seven at night when Killua bolts awake.  
He only knows this because there’s a digital clock on the dresser across from the foot of the bed, the first thing he sees when he jolts upright, eyes wide and searching. Even then, he barely recognizes the bright, glowing numbers, too busy trying to catch his breath. He gasps for air, feeling the empty feeling in his chest that he can’t quite fill with oxygen, with anything. It feels as if he’s run miles and miles in his sleep, and his body is too tired to keep up anymore. He’s older than he’d been when he’d taken the hunter exam; older and worn down beyond his years, and he feels it now more than ever.  
The room is dark, and quiet. His mind is fuzzy, muddled. Confused. He feels like he’s missing something important--the dream that had left him wide-eyed and gasping for breath eludes him, and the darkness feels constricting, like it’s taking his memories away and leaving burning ice in its place. He sucks in a deep breath through his mouth and draws his knees closer, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and finding them wet.  
Think. Think! What are you missing?  
A flash of something surfaces from the fog in his head: Gon, at his side during the hunter’s exam the day they met, running and fighting alongside him. Jumping from tree to tree in the forest until they reach the cliff by the ocean. Smashing pies in each other’s faces while Kurapika watches on, without a care in the world. Gon running to rescue him from near death, blindfold still tied tight around his eyes as he jumps in front of the train to push him out of the way.  
My best friend in the world.  
These are memories from the start of their journey together. Killua knows this much, at least. He remembers each one with perfect clarity--they’re all of the memories that are closest, dearest to his heart.  
And he remembers the rest, too.  
In horrifying detail, he recalls watching Gon crack Neferpitou’s skull open; rageful, violent, everything he shouldn’t be. And in the slow, agonizing stretch of time that only dreams and memories can summon, he watches as a fly on the wall as his past self had rushed forward, feet skidding and slipping on loose dirt as he’d tried desperately to push his friend out of harm’s way, the same way Gon had once done for him. His arms stretch in front of him, reaching out to save Gon, and he knows before he should that he won’t make it in time, but he still has to try--  
Blood bursts from Gon’s body as Neferpitou slices through his skin and bone like paper, severing his arm from his shoulder. It falls to the ground along with the chimera ant’s disembodied head, both landing with sickening thuds that seem to echo louder and louder with each passing second, and the ground beneath them is stained wet with red, an ever-growing pool of blood surrounding them like a sea, and--  
“Killua!”  
The door opens swiftly, hitting the spring doorstop with a dull thud, and suddenly Killua is left blinking through both the wetness in his eyes and the brightness of the hallway light. It takes him a second to make out the figure silhouetted in the doorway, one arm braced against the wall like he’d run to the bedroom, and suddenly Killua realizes his breathing had turned to hyperventilating, and that he’d been making sounds he should probably be embarrassed about. He isn’t, at the moment, too caught up in his nightmare memories to care.  
“Is everything alright?” Leorio asks, alarmed as he takes in the scene before him. Slowly, things start to drift back into place in Killua’s vision, like feathers, one by one. The digital clock says twelve-oh-one. The blanket over his legs is marked with small, wet circles from his eyes. His chest rises and falls slower and slower as the adrenaline disappears from his body, leaving him unsteady and tired. His hands slowly uncurl from where they’d been gripping the sheets, and his jaw slackens, his body no longer tense and on edge.  
Next to him, Alluka sleeps soundly. At the very least, he hadn’t woken her. Leorio seems to notice the same; the steps he takes as he approaches the bed are quiet, the steps of a hunter. He doesn’t turn the bedroom light on, but he leaves the door open, letting light from the hallway spill into the room like morning sunlight through a window, the curtains drawn. It’s not quite enough, but it casts enough light for now, allowing him to see his surroundings.  
“It was just a dream,” Killua says, shaking his head and wiping his arm across his eyes. Now that he’s calmed down a little bit, he’s starting to feel embarrassed once again. Nobody should have to see him like this, nobody should have to deal with him like this… It’s gross, and pathetic. He’s been through much worse than a silly nightmare, after all…  
“A bad dream, I’m guessing,” Leorio says, squatting down by the bed so that he’s about eye-level with Killua. “You’ve been having more of those lately, kid.”  
“You noticed?” He doesn’t mean to ask, but the words come spilling out of his mouth anyway.  
“My ears still work, you know,” Leorio jokes. “I’m not that old yet. I can still hear you waking yourself up every night… But this one was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”  
“It wasn’t,” Killua retorts, hunched over himself still.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“No.”  
Leorio sighs, removing his glasses and rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Look, kid. I’m no good at this kind of stuff… But I know you’ve been through a lot, and you gotta open up to somebody about it.”  
Killua shakes his head stubbornly, eyes fixed on the bed.  
“What about Gon?” Leorio asks. “You haven’t gone to see him in a couple of days. Maybe he could-”  
“No,” Killua says again, shaking his head once. He doesn’t want to tell anyone about his dreams, least of all Gon. What would his friend say? He’d probably only cause him worry if he brought it up, and the last thing Killua wants to do is hurt Gon any more than he’s already been hurt.  
Besides, Gon must be dealing with this kind of stuff, too, and he hasn’t brought it up yet. If he’s strong enough to withstand it on his own, surely Killua can too.  
“Isn’t there anyone who can help?” Leorio asks, a little bit desperate. “You can’t keep losing sleep over this kind of stuff. It isn’t healthy.”  
“It’s fine,” Killua insists, although neither of them believe his words. He already feels bad enough causing Leorio to worry--he doesn’t want to trouble anyone else. They’re just dreams, and he always gets over them eventually. Dreams can’t hurt him worse than they already have.  
Leorio finally seems to understand that he won’t be opening up about his nightmare anytime soon. He sighs again, shaking his head tiredly, and his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose a fraction of an inch. The sight is so familiar that it ends up setting Killua’s heart at ease just a little bit. It’s comforting in such an odd, peculiar way that it almost makes him laugh.  
“Come on,” Leorio says at last, patting the edge of the bed. “I have a feeling neither of us are going back to sleep anytime soon. Get up, Killua. I’ll make you some tea.”  
Killua shakes his head and sniffs once, long. “I’m fine,” he protests, but his voice cracks pathetically on the second word, and Leorio looks thoroughly unimpressed.  
“Come on,” he says again, more insistent. “I’ll bring down those Chocolate Robots I’ve been hiding from you.”  
Oh. That actually… sounds kind of nice right now.  
“Okay,” Killua says, and doesn’t even bother to refuse the hand Leorio holds out for him. He glances over his shoulder at Alluka, making sure she’s still sound asleep, before he lays his feet down on the cool wooden floor and pads after Leorio towards the kitchen. The lights are brighter here, driving the rest of the darkness in Killua’s mind to the very back, soon to be forgotten, but never really gone.  
The clock on the wall reads twelve-oh-nine.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't watched hunter x hunter but this was based off a [comic](https://gachahugs.tumblr.com/post/188400580897/leorio-please-adopt-killua-and-alluka-thanks) my friend [gachahugs](https://gachahugs.tumblr.com/) did over on their tumblr : )  
[my tumblr](https://djbunn3.tumblr.com/)


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